President’s Message
Chief Mary R. Lyons

August 2010


Hope everyone is enjoying this summer and taking some time to vacation and relax.

It is hard to believe that summer is coming to an end and students will be returning to school.

The Commission on Bullying Prevention convened it’s first meeting in June at Attorney General Martha Coakley office. A.G. Coakley is the Chair of the Commission. Agencies in attendance included the MCOPA, Mass Sheriff’s Association, District Attorney’s Association, Association of School Superintendents, Association of Independent Schools in New England, and the Association of School Committees.

The Commission has three charges:

1. Review the General Laws to determine if they need to be amended in order to address bullying and cyber-bullying;

2. Investigate parental responsibility and liability for bullying and cyber-bullying; and

3. Report to the general court the results of its investigation and forward recommendations, if any, together with drafts of legislation necessary to carry out such recommendations, on or before June 30, 2011.

The intent of the new law is to strengthen schools’ ability to responsibly deal with the prevention of bullying. The bill is to prevent bullying, to intervene when bullying is suspected and to use appropriate disciplinary actions to stop further incidents while provide guidance to keep the victim safe. You can review the law at (www.mass.gov/legis.laws/seslaw10/s1100092.html). This is an opportunity for local law enforcement to address the concerns with the school officials and parents regarding bullying prevention. Standard reporting forms are being developed.

Comprehensive mutual aid legislation was signed by the Governor. This comprehensive mutual aid agreement covers all disciplines and services, and is available to all cities and towns that elect to join in the agreement. Communities that opt-in will be able to rely on this agreement to request and send mutual aid resources anywhere in the Commonwealth. This agreement supplements and is secondary to all other agreements that may already exist between communities. Undersecretary Schwartz recently communicated that this comprehensive mutual aid legislation takes effect in 90 days from July 27, 2010. The bill gives MEMA certain administrative responsibilities for maintaining lists of communities that have joined the agreement, and for processing requests for mutual aid. Undersecretary Schwartz will be working with MEMA to disseminate information about the legislation, including information on how cites/towns my join the agreement.

The Police Higher Education Committee continues to meet. The last meeting included a presentation from Civil Service. The Major City Chief’s Standards for Hiring in the 21st Century were also presented. Unfortunately, the document was received by committee members the morning of the meeting. It appeared that the presentation of the document was misconstrued by some members of the committee. After substantial dialogue, it became clear that MMCC Standards for Hiring was not presented for adoption but for discussion.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the PMC ride. Over 700,000 miles were pedaled by PMC riders on 10 different routes through 46 communities. What an accomplishment! Other opportunities to participate with the MCOPA for the Jimmy Fund include the canister collections, the September 12 Jimmy Fund Walk and MCOPA/Jimmy Fund Golf Tournament scheduled for Monday September 27 at the Juniper Hill Golf Course in Northborough. Cancer touches all of us in someway; please consider supporting MCOPA and our efforts to raise funds for The Jimmy Fund.

Respectfully submitted,

Chief Mary R. Lyons
President